Mysterious letters.
A squirrel in a box.
Who really found Shirley Neumann's body?
Here's every time "The Thing About Pam" did – and didn't – lie to you.
Spoilers ahead.
"The Thing About Pam's" first episode sets a peaceful stage for an atrocious crime.
We settle into the lull of post-Christmas, small-town America.
Yet, dreadful anticipation fills the air as narrator Keith Morrison assures us all hell
will soon break loose.
Moments later, we're dropped headlong into chaos with a corpse on the floor and a distraught
husband on the phone with 911.
We hear Russ Faria's pinched voice and see his half-closed eyes.
It's his wife face down and motionless on the living room floor, her upper half splotched
with dark blood.
But that call didn't play out exactly like that.
Faria v. McCarrick puts this 911 phone call at 9:40 pm, making for a significant time
gap in Russ Faria's activities that night.
But reality fills in the gap.
Russ Faria drove for a half hour to reach home and described walking into the house
and finding his wife on the floor in the dark.
Calling 911 wasn't his first instinct.
St. Louis Magazine reports he knelt by her, assuming she'd gotten sick.
The book "Bone Deep: Untangling the Twisted True Story of the Tragic Betsy Faria Murder
Case" notes Faria nearly embraced her before stopping short, afraid to mess up the scene
for investigators.
From this salacious opening, we get some back story.
It begins with Russ and Betsy Faria together at her mom Janet Meyer's house with their
daughter Mariah, when Pam Hupp's phone call shatters their familial bliss.
Hupp insists on picking Betsy Faria up from her mom's house.
But Betsy Faria replies she's feeling better and stronger than usual and wants to stay
with her family.
Although we can only guess at the phone conversations Betsy Faria had that day, text messages paint
a different picture than the show.
So does Russ Faria's later testimony.
According to St. Louis Magazine, Russ Faria didn't visit his mother-in-law's house.
Instead, Deadline reported that he worked from home at his job as an IT specialist until
5 pm, texting his wife throughout the day.
At noon, he mentioned getting her after game night, and she agreed.
But post-treatment, she changed her mind, texting at 3:46 pm that Pam Hupp would bring
her home.
She mentioned a low white cell blood count and inability to sleep at her mom's house.
Documents obtained by Dateline back this up, showing Hupp tracked Betsy Faria's movements
in the days leading up to December 27, looking for a window when she'd be feeling frail from
the chemotherapy and be alone, per NBC News.
Bending the truth continues in the first episode of "The Thing About Pam."
The show flashes to Russ Faria and his friends absorbed in a role-playing game while taking
monster hits off a bong.
While they did get a little high that night, the game never happened.
That's because, as St. Louis Magazine reported, one of the five regular members of the crew
couldn't make it, which took Rolemaster off the table.
Instead, they watched the newest "Conan the Barbarian" movie.
After that, they started the screen adaptation of Cormack McCarthy's "The Road" but stopped
halfway through, bored by the post-apocalyptic drama, according to the book "Bone Deep."
Russ Faria recalled leaving his friend's house around 9:00 pm along with two other friends.
He swung by Arby's in Lake St. Louis for two beef and cheddar melts, downing them while
heading home.
Fortunately, he threw the time-stamped Arby's receipt to the floor of his car.
This receipt, as shown in the TV series, played a vital role later in corroborating his whereabouts
on the night of his wife's murder, per Faria v. McCarrick, Merkel, Harney, and Askey.
The 911 call Russ Faria made proved one of the most scrutinized pieces of evidence during
the first and second Betsy Faria murder trials.
While the first episode of "The Thing About Pam" offers the highlights, it's a small slice
of what really happened on the phone that night, per "Bone Deep."
The actual call contained unbridled panic, uncontrolled disbelief, and incoherent grief.
Russ Faria's brain settled on an unlikely explanation that would come back to haunt
him, saying, as he did in the show:
"My wife killed herself.
She's on the floor."
"The Thing About Pam" only airs portions of the 911 call, capturing the visceral horror
of that night at 130 Sumac.
But the real-life call stretched for 10 agonizing minutes before Chris Hollingsworth, a Lincoln
County Sheriff's Office deputy, arrived.
Once Hollingsworth saw the body, he ushered Russ Faria outside to avoid contaminating
the crime scene.
The flashback to Russ Faria's arrival at the house in the first episode contains another
inaccuracy.
Approaching the porch, Faria finds his dog, Sicily, and asks why she's out there.
This isn't the dog's first sighting on the show.
Prior to Faria getting home, we see Pam Hupp sitting in her car, leaving a voicemail on
Betsy Faria's phone.
Outside, Sicily stands in the road, barking at her.
While Sicily's whereabouts might not seem like a big deal, they factored into both the
first and second murder trials.
As "Bone Deep" recounts, Russ Faria never encountered Sicily on the porch.
Instead, someone had chained her in the backyard, according to Faria v. McCarrick.
Faria found this unusual, explaining that Sicily only went out for brief bathroom breaks
at night.
Fox 2 Now reports detectives claimed they'd found a bloody paw print on Betsy Faria's
body, which the prosecution used to assert the dog knew the murderer well.
But during the retrial, a CSI agent testified the dog's coat and paws contained no presence
of blood, throwing the alleged bloody paw print into suspicion.
Midway through episode one of "The Thing About Pam," Lincoln County law enforcement and first
responders descend on 130 Sumac, turning the Farias' once-quiet neighborhood into a spectacle.
They include Detective Michael Merkel, Captain Mike Lang, and Lead Detective Ryan McCarrick.
As they collect evidence, it's already clear they have a bias about who perpetrated the
crime.
But the show lies here, too.
According to "Bone Deep," Deputy Chris Hollingsworth showed up solo at the house on December 27.
He let himself inside while Russ Faria remained on the phone with the 911 dispatcher.
One look at Betsy Faria's body told Hollingsworth he'd walked into a crime scene.
He had Faria step outside and sit in a chair on the porch.
Next, Hollingsworth got to work, calling for backup.
Soon, detectives Patrick Harney and Mike Merkel arrived, scouring the living room for vital
clues.
As first responders continued to work the crime scene, Merkel and Harney turned their
attention to the most likely suspect.
They asked Faria to accompany them to the sheriff's office for a statement.
One of the largest omissions in the first episode involves a conversation between Deputy
Chris Hollingsworth and Russ Faria while both warmed up in his cruiser.
According to St. Louis Magazine, Hollingsworth tried to simultaneously calm and distract
Faria by asking random questions about the neighborhood.
And it worked too well.
Faria transformed from a near-hysterical widower into a chatty conversationalist, which struck
Hollingsworth as strangely dissonant — even jarring behavior…
Ultimately, the interaction had no impact when it came to cracking Betsy Faria's murder
case.
However, it might have been a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat moment for those unfamiliar
with the case's facts.
Artistic license aside, Faria v. McCarrick tells us Hollingsworth drove Faria to the
sheriff's office around 11 pm that cold December night.
It never dawned on Faria that he was the primary suspect.
Back at the Lincoln County sheriff's office, Russ Faria's behavior fluctuated wildly, according
to St. Louis Magazine.
One moment he calmly answered questions.
The next, he melted into near hysterics, which law enforcement noted as "over the top."
He also did a lot of praying as detectives watched him kneel, building their case against
him.
Whether too calm or too agitated, confirmation bias worked against him.
Episode 1 of "The Thing About Pam" attempts to capture the essence of Faria's tumultuous
interrogation.
Of course, time limitations mean it occurs over tense minutes rather than exhaustive
hours.
According to Faria v. McCarrick, Merkel, Harney, and Askey, after Faria went willingly with
officers on December 27, they didn't release him until December 29, 2011, at 4:30 pm — nearly
two days after bringing him in, according to Dateline.
St. Louis Magazine tells us he endured 10 hours of questioning, suffering severe sleep
deprivation.
Pam Hupp's interrogation in Episode 1 leaves out some pretty telltale dialogue, including
the moment sheriff's deputies asked Hupp about Betsy Faria's $150,000 life insurance policy.
She'd conveniently been named the sole beneficiary just four days before the murder, per Faria
v. McCarrick.
"She goes, 'Well, I want to change my beneficiary to you.
Well, I want my kids to have it, I don't want Russ to have it."
Despite the redacted questioning session, the show does an excellent job of depicting
how Pam Hupp disarmed law enforcement with her homey Midwestern persona.
It also lays the groundwork for the infuriating inconsistencies that would characterize Hupp's
stories during the first and second Betsy Faria murder trials.
This allowed Hupp to weave a web of deception implicating Russ Faria in his wife's murder.
The tension ratchets up in Episode 2 of "The Thing About Pam," as Lincoln County law enforcement's
trap snaps shut on Russ Faria.
Investigators ignore his rock-solid alibi, instead believing Pam Hupp, a woman with no
alibi and a compelling motive.
We also see more of Mark Hupp, a mild, disinterested, even-tempered man.
He takes his wife at face value, without question.
St. Louis Magazine reports law enforcement came to cross-check Pam Hupp's testimony from
the day before against her husband's.
But then the unthinkable happened.
They let her be there during this interview!
We see this in the show as she offers investigators sugar cookies and small talk, instantly putting
them at ease.
As the detectives nosh away, she gossips about the Farias like a stereotypical church lady,
painting her alleged best friend's husband as maniacal.
Horrifyingly, this is an accurate representation of what happened.
But the most outlandish story that Pam Hupp told that day didn't make the television series.
It involved a workout session that Pam Hupp accompanied Betsy Faria to.
Hupp claimed Russ Faria had given his wife "cloudy Gatorade" that smelled rancid and
tasted so awful Betsy Faria had to spit it out.
By Hupp's account, this was just another way Russ would constantly degrade his wife.
Another crucial event explored in Episode 2 of "The Thing About Pam" is the lie detector
test that the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department claimed Russ Faria failed.
We hear from Faria's defense attorney, Joel Schwartz, requesting the lie detector test
results, but the series doesn't delve very deeply into this troubling part of the real-life
case.
As Joel Schwartz pointed out in an interview with St. Louis Magazine, Faria took the test
without hesitation after 32 hours without sleep.
What's more, he still had marijuana in his system.
These two factors raised alarming red flags in Schwartz's mind.
When Schwartz requested a video recording of the test, the sheriff's office claimed
the camera hadn't worked.
He couldn't get his hands on the raw data, either.
Instead, authorities gave him the following statement:
"There were significant, consistent physiological responses indicative of deception."
Besides remaining mum on the faux test theory, we never hear much about the juicy details
surrounding Pam Hupp's refusal to take a polygraph test, per Bustle.
As always, Hupp had an excuse.
She claimed she couldn't take one due to "memory issues" and an unconfirmed "disability."
Any logical person would have agreed these excuses looked highly suspect.
In the second episode of "The Thing About Pam," Joel Schwartz asks his client about
Pam Hupp, and Russ Faria doesn't have a whole lot to say about her.
"She's, I don't know, a nice lady."
But according to St. Louis Magazine, his assessment of Hupp didn't stop there.
He noted that his wife's so-called friend wasn't as close to Hupp as she claimed, saying:
"I could name half a dozen other people Betsy was closer to."
The last text session Faria had with his wife supports this conclusion.
Betsy Faria refers to her friend as "Pam Hupp."
The use of a last name depicts them more like acquaintances than inseparable friends.
In a roundabout way, the television series alludes to this, especially in the first episode.
Hupp imposes herself on the situation, showing up uninvited at Janet Meyer's home.
Everybody at the house looks visibly uncomfortable.
During Hupp's later interviews with detectives, we see her altering history to make her relationship
with Betsy Faria sound more significant than it likely was.
The creators of "The Thing About Pam" took liberties with characterizing Betsy Faria's
two daughters.
The oldest daughter Leah Day immediately buys the idea her stepdad could murder their mother.
Mariah Day appears far more sympathetic towards Russ.
But, in reality, the Faria daughters had more nuanced relationships with their longtime
stepdad, per Fox 2 Now.
A Fox 2 Now interview with both women a decade after their mother's murder provides insight
into what really happened.
The girls pointed out that Hupp went to great lengths to pick up their mom that evening,
but authorities countered, saying Russ Faria was the, quote, "only possible killer."
During the interview, the Days also discussed receiving a hurtful handwritten letter at
the restaurant where they worked.
Although anonymous, they wrongly assumed it came from their stepdad, creating a huge rift
at the time.
"And it made it seem like it was from someone affiliated with Russ.
Looking back now I'm sure it was sent from Pam Hupp."
We never hear about the letter during Episode 3 of "The Thing About Pam."
But we do see a half-truth involving Prosecutor Leah Askey who pressures Mariah Day to testify
against Russ Faria.
In reality, Leah Day had this conversation with Askey.
Episode 3 ends with a bang.
An unmarked box sits in the driveway of Pam Hupp's elderly next-door neighbor, Minnie,
a busybody who keeps her eye on the community.
Earlier, we watched Hupp con Minnie into attending Russ Faria's first murder trial while Hupp
waits to testify with the other witnesses.
Minnie wears a disguise and keeps Hupp apprised of the court's goings-on via text message.
But their relationship sours after Hupp learns Minnie's been talking to Dateline about the
Russ Faria murder trial.
Fast-forward back to the shoebox, which Minnie opens, finding one of the beloved neighborhood
squirrels she feeds.
That sort of sly aggression fits with accounts from Hupp's friends, per St. Louis Magazine.
One individual observed,
"She was easy company; I never saw her get mad."
Members of Hupp's neighborhood in O'Fallon likely would've agreed.
But if these neighbors thought about it, they could attest to strange circumstances that
started when the Hupps moved in.
Cars got keyed, mean-spirited letters showed up, and bloody animal remains ended up in
one neighbor's yard.
Hindsight now makes them wonder if such incidents stem back to Hupp.
Episode 4 of "Thing About Pam" does a deep dive into Pam Hupp's inglorious past.
Portrayed as having deep-seated feelings of repression and resentment, she lashes out
at her conservative Catholic and alcoholic mother, Shirley Neumann.
In return, Neumann threatens repeatedly to cut her out of her will.
The show alludes to Hupp's pent-up rage after getting knocked up at prom, enduring a shotgun
wedding, and resigning herself to housewife status.
St. Louis Magazine confirms some elements of this storyline.
Hupp's friends also recall sensing underlying resentment from her.
Although she'd done the responsible thing, changing dirty diapers and warming bottles
held little glamor compared to going off to college.
But not much has been written about Hupp and Neumann's relationship ... other than the
fact it's been suspected of ending in matricide.
As a beneficiary of her mother's life insurance policy, Hupp had a clear motive.
And the way Neumann's body fell through the middle metal rungs of a balcony without damaging
the top banister looked highly suspicious.
But here's where the show goes off the rails.
Neumann died on Halloween, and the show depicts her body found at night by a pair of teen
trick-or-treaters.
While it makes for a dramatic moment, that's not how it went down.
Fox 2 Now reports a housekeeper at Lakeview Park in Fenton, the facility where Neumann
lived, found her body at approximately 2:30 pm.
"Hupp has not been charged in her mother's death.
She is due in court later this month in the other murder case."
In the sixth episode of "The Thing About Pam," Hupp goes after Russ Faria again through a
hair-brained plot posing as Cathy Singer of NBC's "Dateline."
She buys various items from the Dollar Store, including a knife, and then cruises the Sweet
Gatherings Mobile Home Park where Carol Alford lives.
Hupp offers Alford $1,000 to record some soundbites for an upcoming episode of "Dateline."
As Hupp gave off increasingly weird vibes during the drive, Alford asked to go back
for her shoes and to lock her front door, accurately portrayed in the show.
But they omit the moment after Alford's return when she told Hupp she had cameras on her
house and a knife in her hoodie pocket.
The show also suggests Pam set her sights on Louis Gumpenberger immediately after Alford.
In reality, Hupp did a lot more neighborhood trolling before setting her sights on the
mentally disabled man, as reported by Fox 2.
Cellphone tracking data shows six days after letting Alford go, Hupp lured Gumpenberger
from his apartment to her house.
There, she shot him dead in her bedroom rather than the entryway, as the show depicts.
As for the makeshift rug that protects her carpet from his blood, in reality, a missing
doormat was found under his body, per St. Louis Today.
"I just start shooting him; walking towards him, 'cause I wanted to, I wanted to be sure
I hit him."
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